Sunday, August 7, 2011

Surviving The Cut

Has anyone seen that show Surviving The Cut where they basically follow guys trying to become special forces officers and go through all these crazy ass obstacles to test their physical and mental strengths? I swear I feel like I've just been on that show. Since we moved out here, I have been longing to jog around Cooper Creek park. I've tried to do so on many occasions and just haven't been able to because the weather out here is totally different and I have a hard time hanging with the humidity. Anyway, after a month and a half or so, I'm finally adjusting to the place. Yes, its hot and wet and sticky and gross. Yes, I still hate it, but I'll take that in trade for the greenery and being able to pretend I live in Vietfrickinnam and pretend I'm running from Charlie... ok, so that's a little ridiculous but it's definitely one "imagery driven" running situation I like to pretend when I run. (Yes, I am that nutty, I pretend to be running for my life. It's like those dudes who do tactical training with guns. Train like you perform, perform like you train. I also pretend other fun things too like I'm running from zombies, running to save someone's life, running to go to something awesome, running like I'm Forrest Gump and I'm gonna run from one end of the country to the other and back again...)

Back to the point at hand, though. Since I haven't been able to run, I've gained a significant amount of weight. About 15 lbs to be precise. And because I also believe the humiliation diet works, I don't mind sharing that. I'm pretty sure that once it got to the point I went up a pant size and none of my clothes were fitting me right anymore, it was high time to do something about it. I've been trying to watch what I eat for weeks now and it hasn't been doing much. I need that extra boost. I need exercise. I also need to flush my body of all the toxic crap (a week worth of nothing but fast food three times a day, residual fast food build up, soda, ice cream, and ungodly amounts of sodium and mayo, which are my new devils and I believe I may need to completely rid my house of all traces of salt and mayo in order to kick that habit.) But more than anything, I need exercise. You see, I am the kind of person if I get good exercise I can pretty much eat whatever I want and it'll even out in the end and I'm happy and fine. Unfortunately, I'm also the kind of person who eats when I'm bored, eats when I'm sad, and gets sad when I get fat and eat to make it better (I believe my friend Allyssa knows about these vicious cycles waaay better than I do as she's a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. I should probably give her a call sometime for a "session".)

Anyway, eating issues aside, I finally got to the point I needed to run. I got a hair up my butt to go out. It felt very much like surviving the cut. Cooper Creek is a totally different run than Virginia Lake. Virginia Lake for one has a gravel trail and a separate paved concrete trail. I always run on the concrete. It's also hot out in NV, but dry. For the most part, with the exception of the southern end, it is flat with one small hill. Cooper Creek is way harder. For starters, it is longer. Virginia Lake was at the most 1.25 miles around (from our place and back), Cooper Creek is 2.25 miles around (from our place around all the way and back). Cooper Creek also has a clustercuss of different surfaces to run on. The flat areas are either paved concrete or a dirt trail. Not too bad. It's the hills that suck. There are more hills and they are steeper, longer, and the worst one is a rocky terrain, the other is grass near marshy areas and you need to watch out for snakes, or at least I watch out for snakes because I have seen snakes out there and when I'm running, I don't have the time to look if it's venomous or not. Oh and then there is finally the issue of its hot as a sauna out here. It was around 92º out here with a heat index of 97º when I went out, but whatever. People pay money to do that sweaty yoga stuff, I could do it for free on my patio if I wasn't so worried about the damned mosquitos. But literally, after I ran my normal steady pace of 5 mph around the stupid lake and cooled down once I reached the yellow gate and creek behind our place, I was dripping in sweat, and felt like I had the shit kicked out of me. I would be a liar if I said I didn't.

When I got home, I sat out on the patio with a glass of water with ice and played "sauna" to relax my muscles but came inside after about 3 minutes and 3 mosquito bites later. In good news, there are now 3 dead mosquitoes in the world... Long story short, I survived the cut. I'm not gonna join special ops, but I finally achieved a personal goal of being able to run around the lake all the way. I need to work on some diet type stuff the next few days and then I'm thinking Wednesday or Thursday I'll go back out again and try to jog. Oh and this is all a bit of preparation for hunting season. I need to get in shape for that. Plus I'd like to still fit my clothes. I love shopping, but I'd rather it be because I saw something cute I liked, not because I outgrew things I need. Yeaahhh... awkward...